Bits Bucket for November 7, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Got teaser for non-recourse construction loans…first time I’ve seen such a thing post crash. Credit markets opening up.
Non-recourse construction loans…Hay-sus…here we go again…
25 MILLION excess, empty and defaulted houses CHECK
Housing demand at 14 year lows and falling CHECK
Housing prices inflated by 250% CHECK
Household formation at multi decade lows CHECK
Rampant housing fraud CHECK
Public denial formed and supported by a corrupt media CHECK
Population growth the lowest in US history CHECK
Immigration flat to slightly negative CHECK
Oh my word……
“To infinity and beyond”. Don’t get too excited RW. We are a long way from any kind of ignition sequence countdown!
I’m not getting excited, but I had a back and forth with wealth advisor about how all the QE is ending up as excess reserves, and so that is the reason there is no inflation.
The opening up of credit markets could change this…it will take time, but allowing construction financing without personal recourse is another step in that direction.
A “wealth advisor” heh? lol
Youre a phony.
make sure you get a piece of twitter today. Talk about a meal ticket.
“Mortgage Applications Plummet by 7%
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/11/06/mortgage-applications-plummet-by-7.aspx
With demand collapsed to 16 year lows and falling, there is no bottom in sight for housing prices.
Sorry, I’m not a buyer…so much revenue/income growth is baked into today’s value that you’ve really got to be a believer, and I’m not there.
Maybe I’m just a luddite, but I prefer to understand the income streams in the companies in which I invest.
“Talk about a meal ticket.”
American Homes 4 Rent (AMH) will announce its quarterly earnings today after the market close. Time to go all in if you haven’t already done so.
To the moon … and beyond.
I’m heavy enough on housing…no AMH for me.
Any wagers on occupancy level? Last quarter was 56%. I’m going to say that they are over 70% now (combination of slower acquisitions combined with more of their earlier acquisitions being made ready for leasing).
Considering they were all empty when they bought these depreciating assets with borrowed money, and that the national vacancy rate is 19%(that’s 890% above long term trend), it’s fair to say most of them are still empty.
“… most of them are still empty.”
And if they remain empty then the lack of rental income will put some hurts on their bottom line.
And if they are rented out enmass then pressure will be put on rents and this pressure will be felt on all their other rentals and this will put the hurts on their bottom line.
Sept. 2013: AMH just upped their borrowing by $300 million to $800 million. If they have 19,000 houses, they now owe $42,000 per house.
I would venture to say in 2006 those 19,000 houses had loans totaling (or $200,000 each).
I think this 2013 scenario is much preferred to the 2006 scenario. What do we care if the stockholders in AMH get a lower return? There is little chance of default given these current LTVs. They have a stable platform and can hold the assets for a long time.
oops….typo….dropped $3.8 Billion…see correction
I would venture to say in 2006 those 19,000 houses had loans totaling $3.8 Billion (or $200,000 each).
Why hold depreciating assets for “a long time”? Especially considering there are millions of others just like them… empty and depreciating.
That’s not investing.
“What do we care…”
For one thing, if the cash buy to let frenzy was 50% of the used house market activity over the past year, what happens to said market when this business model starts to stink and the fund buying stops? Does the market resume its relentless march downward? Will another clown act appear to keep the market bouncing sideways?
“….if the cash buy to let frenzy was 50% of the used house market activity over the past year…”
AMH bought 19,000 homes.
CLNY bought 50,000 homes.
How else bought homes for cash investments?
How many homes were sold in the US last year?
Probably 5,000,000 homes. These cash buyers are not making the market. They are affecting it, yes, but their volume is way less than 50%. More like 10%/year…..and now it is nothing, since they have stopped.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzt: WRONG
Total sales volume this year was investment cash, borrowed or not.
Nice try.
‘investment cash, borrowed or not’
Investment cash is borrowed in a way. They expect a return.
Maybe I’m just a luddite, but I prefer to understand the income streams in the companies in which I invest.
And here I believed that I was the only one who thought this way!
I meant to say 50% of total sales volume were investment cash transactions. Even NARscum concedes this reality.
OK on the 5 million used houses for 2013.
It has been reported here many times that 50% of used house sales were cash transactions earlier in 2013. I have no idea who these buyers were aside from the two funds you cite. I do wonder if they have stopped also. If so, some free fall might be in the works.
And the 5 million is annualized.
More importantly, NARscum overstated sales by double digit percentages every single month for 5 years straight.
Considering that level of graft, you can wager sales are somewhere around 3.5 million or less.
“How many homes were sold in the US last year?
Probably 5,000,000 homes. These cash buyers are not making the market.”
It’s not the number of cash buyers that matters, but rather the share of fly-by-night investors versus long-term buy-and-hold owners that matters.
You’ll understand what I mean once you see it through the lens of history’s rear-view mirror, after this all shakes out. Meanwhile, feel free to assume that a historically-high share of investor purchases in U.S. residential real estate can continue forever if it pleases you.
Investors Selling Bulk Home Purchases
Friday, November 01, 2013
Bendix Anderson
The U.S. housing market collapse and resulting field of distressed properties put millions of homes up for grabs and bargain prices, many of which were snapped up by institutional investors. New reports indicate that many of those investors are already ready to cash in on those buys in the form of securitizations and IPOs. Some real estate investment trusts are launching IPOs, while others are making smaller sales. Some large investors, however, are holding onto their properties and even collecting more. Analysts say the good news is that home prices are still appreciating in places where those investors are scaling back on purchases, which is a sign of a healthy market. For more on this continue reading the following article from National Real Estate Investor.
Some investors that built up pools of single-family homes are already beginning to cash in through IPOs, securitizations and portfolio sales.
Blackstone Group has put together a securitization backed exclusively by income from single-family rental properties—Invitation Homes 2013-SFR-1. The $500 million deal bundles rental homes into securities where the rental payments will be passed through to investors.
Blackstone has invested heavily in the sector and acquired the largest single-family portfolio in the country, some 30,000 to 40,000 homes and invested $7 billion in the sector. The homes it acquires are offered for rent through a venture called Invitation Homes.
Blackstone’s move come four months after American Homes 4 Rent conducted an IPO to raise about $800 million. American Homes 4 Rent has a portfolio of nearly 20,000 single-family homes—the second largest in the country. American Homes 4 Rent this month announced a second public offering of 4.4 million preferred shares to raise another $110 million.
Two other smaller single-family housing REITs include Sliver Bay Realty Trust and American Residential Properties Inc. Another firm, Colony American Homes, canceled a planned IPO in June.
Others have looked to flip assets through smaller portfolio sales. For example, Oaktree Capital put a portfolio of 500 homes up for sale in late September.
According to RealtyTrac, entities that control portfolios of at least 100 homes have purchased 75,000 single-family homes since 2011. Of those 75,000 homes, more than a quarter have already been resold by the investors who bought them.
Investors that have cashed in have benefited from single-family home prices that have improved sharply. The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas rose 0.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from July to August. Compared to a year earlier, prices were up 12.8 percent, marking the strongest gain since February 2006, when the increase was 13.8 percent.
The Long Haul
Investors with smaller portfolios count for the bulk of re-sales. The largest investors, including entities that have purchased more 1,000 homes apiece since 2011, have only resold about 1 percent of their homes.
“It looks like the big guys are holding on,” says Daren Blomquist, vice president for data firm RealtyTrac. “They seem more committed to the model of buying the homes and renting them out.” This model is not totally dependent on price appreciation to work. For investors that have bought more than 1,000 homes since 2011, only 36 percent of the homes they bought were in some stage of foreclosure at the time of the sale; 37 percent were “underwater,” meaning the property value was less than the amount owed on the mortgage. The remaining 27 percent were conventional sales—many of the homes were listed for sale on the multiple listing service.
“They are gobbling up properties any way they can,” says Blomquist.
In September, institutional investors accounted for 14 percent of all single-family home sales, according to RealtyTrac. That’s up from just 9 percent last year.
In 2011 and 2012, these institutional buyers focused on the markets recovering most quickly from the housing crash. Top markets for these institutional investors included places like Phoenix, Ariz., and Bakersfield, Calif.
“It’s surprising that the institutional investors continue to go to more and more property markets to acquire these properties… we continue to see the institutional investment continue to go up,” Blomquest says.
…
The guy from Foreclosure Radar on the YouTube video I watched noted that they saw 10% or so of homes selling to LLCs or LPs, now that number is down to about 5% (ie. buying from these partnerships is way down).
Realtors R liars
“I meant to say 50% of total sales volume were investment cash transactions. Even NARscum concedes this reality.”
No.
50% were cash sales.
A smaller percentage were investors (some cash buyers were owner occupants).
…..same difference.
“some cash buyers were owner occupants…”
I imagine it is impossible to get a believable statistic on how large this army of cash rich “occupants” is. You don’t have to tell anyone what you are going to do with a property when you buy it cash, except maybe the local tax assessor.
Well, when a sale is recorded, you can find out whether there is a lien recorded against the property. There would be no such lien with a cash purchase.
And if the property tax bill is to be sent to an address other than the address of the home, it is a pretty good indicator as to whether it is an investor or owner-occupant.
If you can get access to all the information, then you can probably come up with a reasonable estimate.
In any event, the you don’t necessarily need to be “rich” to be a cash buyer, you just need to be selling a much more expensive house than you are buying.
My parents were far from rich, but they were cash buyers a few years back for just this reason.
“It looks like the big guys are holding on,” says Daren Blomquist, vice president for data firm RealtyTrac. “They seem more committed to the model of buying the homes and renting them out.” This model is not totally dependent on price appreciation to work.
HBB predicted this months ago, and I repeated it a couple days ago. These funds thought that housing was like a stock. Buy a lot because there’s always a supply. Sell a lot because there’s always someone on the NYSE who will buy — instantly. Evidence:
1. They started buying in Phoenix and Vegas only because they saw the pendulum swing too far in those markets and figured those properties would appreciate the most and the fastest.
2. Companies with larger holdings are going to rental route. It’s not hard for a small fund to sell a few houses, but the big boyz can’t sell thousands at once. And if they tried, the resulting price drop would defeat the purpose of selling in the first place.
3. These funds managers were working on assembling those Rental Backed Securities for sale rather LATE in the game, weren’t they? It was a last resort. Appreciation didn’t work out, and the rent alone is a pain in the patootie and doesn’t cash flow as well as they thought.
So, as Ben said, they are trying to get out of the game. Hand off the house to a local property managment, hand off the RBS to a greater fool, and go back to stocks which is all they know.
I was off, I thought they’d be over 70% occupied…here is the applicable occupancy data from AMH’s website–I was pretty close:
“Continued strong occupancy with 96.2% of properties leased that have been rent-ready for more than 90 days and total portfolio occupancy of 67.6%”
Oh, and they declared their first dividend.
The “pendulum swung to far” eh Donkey??? LOLZ
Only if you have no idea the value of a dollar.
Low inflation
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank cut interest rates to a record low on Thursday and said it could take them lower still to prevent the euro zone’s recovery from stalling as inflation tumbles.
The move took financial markets by surprise - the euro fell sharply in response while European shares rose.
Underlining its support for the euro zone economy, the ECB also said it would prime banks with as much liquidity as required until mid-2015.
Makes sense considering inflation is negative.
Low inflation ??
Yep but its the “fear” of deflation that is driving there response…
Maybe they will give everyone $3000 cash card… and it will stimulate the economy….sitting as reserves does zippo
Hmmm 3k x 100 million households is 300 billion less the 4 month of Bernanke QE56789
“Credit markets opening up.”
What does that mean in terms of future erosion in underwriting standards, price appreciation fueled by credit quality decline, default risk, and bailout prospects?
It means lenders are making loans today that they wouldn’t make a year ago. In some cases, it’s because they were being unreasonable before (we asked for a 5% loan to paid-in-equity line for a fund a couple of years ago, and the answer was “no”, the answer now is “yes”), in some cases it’s because they are simply getting more aggressive…I put non-recourse construction loans in the “aggressive” camp.
Over time, too much aggressive lending leads to bad things. Happens every cycle.
BTW, this is for commercial lending.
I just listened to a long video on a housing conference, HA would love it, John Burns, Thornberg, Leslie Appleton-Young, founder of Foreclosure Radar…all of his friends were present.
In any event, one comment that John Burns had was interesting…that with Dodd Frank as currently written, the BUYERS of mortgage loans take on liability if the loans do not meet QRM requirements. His comment that was if that liability was not there, you would see HUGE demand from the likes of PIMCO/Blackrock to buy mortgage debt…however, with that liability there, they aren’t touching the stuff.
I don’t want to give a download of what they said because I’ll be attacked…if you want to watch, it’s “2013 I survived real estate” on YouTube. They touch on a number of topics.
Understand who the messenger is, but also try to learn about the reasons they give behind the message.
Thanks RW…I will take a look at it…
^
lolz
Just finished viewing it RW…Thanks very much…I wouldn’t mind meeting up with you someday…I think you are up around Oakland aren’t you ??
Two comments from Burns;
More homes have been built last year in the city of Houston then in the entire state of California…That tells you how difficult it is to build in the state…
The fee’s charged for a permit to build a home in the city of Carlsbad California exceeds the cost of actually building a house in San Antonio Texas..
The fee’s charged for a permit to build a home in the city of Carlsbad California exceeds the cost of actually building a house in San Antonio Texas..”
I have received a pre -election flyer on extending SOAR which locks up most of the build able land in Ventura County subject to voter approval to build anything.
Mostly voters approve million dollar homes not appartments
The $90k Neptune meter fantasy again?
I’m actually mid-Peninsula near Palo Alto. Happy to meet up sometime. Is there a way I can contact you offline?
Yes but lets work through it to be able remain anonymous…My worst nightmare would be that RAL had my email address…Maybe Ben can help…
If you both email me contact info, I can forward one to the other. No serial killing please.
RAL has mine but never emails me
fog a mirror , get a loan?
blow a trannie, get a bailout?
get knocked up, get a bailout?
“blow a trannie”
Is that a gearbox or cross-dresser?
Well… as I recall.. Liberace is an ace mechanic. You know… alternators and stuff. I wonder if he’s a tranny pro too. Cuz I have a sh*tbox with a bad tranny in it. I think it was build in South America. Brazil perhaps.
How bout ya Liberace. Can you work on my Brazilian Tranny?
Don’t we have a Brazilian tranny here?
Don’t we have a Brazilian tranny here?
that’s too funny! i have to steal it. my comrade, the ‘brazilian tranny’!
‘brazilian tranny’!
Wow tj, you really came alive thinking about that huh? How does it feel tj?
it just made me laugh comrade, that’s all. you’re still the closer so don’t let it bother you.
(Brazilian tranny’s) just made me laugh comrade, that’s all.
Right. They are here and there. Just be true to yourself Dr. G.
Just be true to yourself Dr. G.
see, ya got me good there. back to your superior form comrade!
my comrade, the ‘brazilian tranny’!
There it is Ben, in a nutshell.
I talk of real ideas and actual situations and I get personally attacked. It happens all the time. Not that I am hurt about getting personally attacked. I’m not. It actually weakens their “points”.
But I wonder why I am the one who gets put on notice.
‘Burp…YadaYadaYada. Damn. You are the most boring poster I’ve seen.’
I talk of real ideas and actual situations and I get personally attacked.
oh come on comrade. remember, i’m part of your comedy team. i’m goebels, correct?
Brazilian Tranny,
Are you in the film business down there?
By the way, on the panel that I listened to, the most bearish was the guy from Foreclosure Radar. He disagreed openly with L. Appleton-Young on at least one occasion. In any event, on the specific question on whether the rent-to-own investors will flood the market and cause a correction, he made the following points:
1. There was an owner of about 300 SFH rentals in Sacramento in 2004 who decided he had made enough money and wanted to sell, and so he sent ALL the eviction notices at once, and wanted to list them all for sale at once. The tenants complained (because they were all going to be looking for a new place to live at the same time), and so political pressure was brought to bear, essentially forcing the owner to sell over time;
2. The big owners that he knew of who were exiting were not looking to sell individual homes, but to sell their entire portfolio to other big entities.
He put the probability of a market disruption caused by these guys selling at 0%.
What is this “panel” you were listening to and why were you listening to it? Something with L-A-Y? What value could there be in that?
Where is the California Housing Hookers backpedalling I posted a few months ago? It was classic.
I get e-mail blasts from John Burns (we’ve had them do a couple of market studies for us). He linked a Youtube Video to a panel that he was on with Thornberg. There were a bunch of other videos from the same conference, so I listened to what they had to say (seeking data). One panel was a couple of mortgage people who I never heard of, the other was L-A-Y and the Foreclosure Radar guy.
I linked the video down below.
Who is going to buy all those houses they are completing in Phoenix? The used inventory already there isn’t selling and price reductions are commonplace.
There is new construction everywhere, far outpacing new move ins and job creation.
Good question.
And what will happen to the 4 million excess, empty and defaulted houses in CA?
http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/thinking-of-moving-heres-where-your-fellow-americans-went-from-2000-to-2010/
I’m guessing the bet is that these trends resume.
If you are guessing, then keep guessing. Things have changed since then. Houses are no longer cheap like they were during much of that time. Jobs are no longer as plentiful. The PHX boom ended with the bubble crash and there’s not even jobs for those who came. They aren’t going to be building new shopping centers every 2 miles like during then.
Just REREAD and saw too snarky. No offense. Also hope is not a strategy. I suggest to all James Altucher’s recent post on this topic, google “11 or 12 Things I Learned About Life While Daytrading Millions of Dollars”
I don’t read any snark to it, no offense.
My only comment is that these migration trends move throughout the country…AZ happens to be a place where people are overall migrating TO, not FROM.
I’m certain that migration trends have been slower recently, but I wonder if any of these trends have actually reversed…I would doubt that…
Don’t buy into the migration trend folks. It ended in 2005-2006… just like the “retirement” trend.
This is really interesting, thanks. I’ve got a sentimental attachment to Upstate NY - my first grad school was in Rochester. What I see is
1) Finger Lakes counties (Seneca, Ontario) are consolidating population and growing a bit
2) Saratoga County (Saratoga Springs) consolidating population and gaining a bit
3) Adirondack State Park environs depopulating badly
4) The port and transport towns lining the St. Lawrence Seaway and the NYS shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie are depopulating. Perhaps the residents are flowing out to the Finger Lakes.
5) Cattaraugus County (area to the east of what used to be Fredonia Teachers College, don’t know if it’s there anymore) is depopulating as starkly as Adirondack State Park region
6) The general picture appears as a movement away from the shoreline port towns along Ontario and Erie to a more easterly direction, towards the border of New Hampshire. Even so, it’s no stampede - just a gradual flow towards the East.
I used to bike and canoe all over those places. They are beautiful places. Back then, the taxes were on the order of $2.0K for a $40K (older)house, the kind that a newly minted grad student would buy after he landed his first local job. Now the taxes are $6K for the same $40K house, which has (unless it has been rigorously maintained) had physical depreciation. The heat-freeze cycles up there are brutal.
It is so cold on the Southern Tier (the straight bit that separates New York from PA) that the snow just gets pushed around and packed, squeaking beneath your feet and getting dirtier from November to March. Oil heat still has the lion’s share of the market. With de-industrialization, middle class jobs flight, and no money to undertake a furnace or window replacement, I’m wondering how the Sam Hill the people who remain manage to stay alive? I guess that’s what the 15% taxes are for?
I hope the little towns can manage to rebuild some kind of light industry that requires more than a screen, a CPU and a desk, so that money flows in from outside. Right now, the local economies consist of everybody in town recirculating the same $9 for an hour of painting nails, cutting hair or changing oil for one another.
There’s a certain pall that descends over a region as the inhabitants awake to the certainty that that’s all there is. You can maintain valiant efforts at pancake breakfast fundraisers and Labor Day parades…but even over five years, it becomes evident that there are fewer kids, and more of the elderly.
So, NYS voted in casino gambling to perk up the local economies. Looks like the locals already sussed out where they would be sited - right around the Finger Lakes, and Saratoga Springs.
Good luck hauling out of town money up there.
Picker, Arizona’s economy is based on building houses for people who are going to move here and…
…sell houses!
It’s going to be like it used to be in Bakersfield, where people don’t buy used houses, they buy new.
heard a cash out re-fi commercial this morning on the radio…2.75%.
also…google H.R. 992.
HR 992…CRS summary is the first hit on google:
“Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act - Amends the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act with respect to the prohibition against certain federal assistance to swaps entities, namely the use of any advances from specified Federal Reserve credit facilities or discount windows, or Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance or guarantees, for the purpose of: (1) making any loan to, or purchasing any stock, equity interest, or debt obligation of, any swaps entity
…Requires any covered depository institution exempted from the prohibition to limit its swap and security-based swap activities to hedging and similar risk mitigating activities
…Repeals the exemption from the prohibition for any insured depository institution that limits its swap and security-based swap activities..”
———
This is why I’m not a lawyer. “Repeal the exemption from the prohibition to limit…” Do we have any lawyer-types that can interpret this? From what I can tell, Dodd-Frank prohibits anyone from using Fed or Discount Window money from dealing in default swaps. This amendment would loosen(?) the prohibition so pretty much anyone can play a game of CDS with Fed money. I think.
yes…in other words…this bill will make us more civilized.
and here is a rant and well sourced.
http://www.upworthy.com/something-really-insane-just-happened-in-congress-and-you-probably-havent-heard-a-word-about-it
have fun america and party on!
Could you maybe give a summary of the rant? I can’t get YouTube here.
So, I was correct in that this amendment would let anyone play CDS with Fed (taxpayer) money?
You do realize that this loosey-goosey amendment was introduced by a Republican and passed the House with Republican votes, and never passed the Senate, right?
http://daily.represent.us/theres-something-absolutely-insane-happening-house-right-now/
“The derivatives bill was sponsored by Rep. Randy Hultgren (R – IL). According to Maplight.org, a nonpartisan research organization that tracks money around congressional votes, Hultgren’s top source of campaign contributions is the Securities and Investment industry. The Bill also has eight co-sponsors — four Republicans and four Democrats. Maplight’s data also shows donors with Wall Street ties as major sources of campaign funding for six of the eight cosponsors (Reps. Spencer Bachus (R – AL), Scott Garrett (R – NJ), Jim Himes (D – CT), Sean Maloney (D – NY), Bradley Schneider (D – IL), and David Scott (D – GA) ).”
“Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act - Amends the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act with respect to the prohibition against certain federal assistance to swaps entities, namely the use of any advances from specified Federal Reserve credit facilities or discount windows, or Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance or guarantees, for the purpose of: (1) making any loan to, or purchasing any stock, equity interest, or debt obligation of, any swaps entity”
Can’t really translate because it doesn’t specify what happens - just says that it “amends” the Dodd-Frank Act. So, it either loosens or tightens the restrictions that the Dodd-Frank Act imposed on “swaps entities” (presumably defined in that bill” on being able to borrow from the Fed, get FDIC guarantees, etc.
“Requires any covered depository institution exempted from the prohibition to limit its swap and security-based swap activities to hedging and similar risk mitigating activities”
If you are a “covered depositary institution” (also, probably defined in the Dodd-Frank Act), and you are exempt from some prohibition (not specified here, but looks to be a prohibition on participating in swaps) your swap activities have to be limited to hedging. For example, you can buy a credit default swap on Ford bonds if you actually own Ford bonds, but not if you just think that the credit default swap market is under pricing the risk of Ford defaulting.
“…Repeals the exemption from the prohibition for any insured depository institution that limits its swap and security-based swap activities..”
Not enough words to parse what is being done here. You have to know what happens in the rest of the sentence after “swap activities.”
“the reason there is no inflation.”
There it is. It takes more than available funds at the bank to get a credit expansion going. It takes exuberant borrowing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfQFVOMLbWI
John Burns and Thornberg on a housing panel.
Watch it, don’t watch it, whatever…
Thornberg is one of the best. He called the housing bubble in 2005 and was crucified by UCLA for doing it, so he left (or was asked to resign?). He also called the upturn off the bottom in 2011-12. It will be fun to review what this panel says. Thanks RW.
And stated the upturn would be fleeting…..
“Thornberg is one of the best.”
-1 He is also a “RE turn-coat.” Enjoy the Koolaid.
realtors are liars
a house will get you out of the doldrums your stuck in.
Suzanne researched it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPIxrzmatq0
Can it get you out of a foreclosure and a divorce?
Early stages of Roman Empire decay redux :
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/11/06/surveillance-video-captures-flash-mob-robberies-at-3-chicago-area-stores/
HA! Just posted an exerpt of the article before your link posted.
Nothing to see here folks, just Obama’s “sons” out having a lark (”If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon” — President Barack Hussein Obama).
Where are Al and Jesse protesting this? Oh, right. They’re too busy down at Social Justice Inc. headquarters cashing checks.
This is scary stuff. USA is going bats#!t crazy. Seriously. Be afraid. Real Libertarians (All 20 of them) would be nuts to vote for today’s Repubs. This one place where the far-right gets its talking points-and indoctrination:
Ted Cruz’s Dad Calls US a “Christian Nation,” Says Obama Should Go “Back to Kenya”
(Ted Cruz’s father, mentor, adviser and confident) Rafael Cruz regularly speaks to tea party and Republican groups in Texas as a surrogate for his son; during Ted Cruz’s 2012 Senate campaign, his father was dispatched to events and rallies across the state to whip up support….The elder Cruz is a North Texas-based pastor who directs a small outfit called Purifying Fire Ministries.*
Rafael Cruz, speaking to the North Texas Tea Party on behalf of his son, who was then running for Senate, called President Barack Obama an “outright Marxist” who “seeks to destroy all concept of God,”
A few weeks ago, he sparked headlines when he told a gathering of Republicans in Colorado that Obama has vowed to “side with the Muslims,” that Obamacare mandates “suicide counseling” for the elderly, and that gay marriage is a plot to make “government your god.”
At that event, he asserted that Christian true believers are “anointed” by God to “take dominion” of the world in “every area: society, education, government, and economics.” He was preaching a particular form of evangelical Christianity known as Dominionism (a.k.a. Christian Reconstructionism) that holds that these “anointed” Christians are destined to take over the government and create in practice, if not in official terms, a theocracy. Rafael Cruz also endorsed the evangelical belief known as the “end-time transfer of wealth”—that is, as a prelude to the second coming of Christ, God will seize the wealth of the wicked and redistribute it to believers. But, Cruz told the flock, don’t expect to benefit from this unless you tithe mightily
(In July, several prominent Dominionist pastors at a ceremony in Iowa blessed and anointed Ted Cruz, rendering him, in their view, a “king” who would help usher in the kingdom of Christ.)
….introducing Ted, when he was in middle school, to the Free Enterprise Education Center, where the young Cruz was flooded with Austrian School libertarian economics and archly conservative interpretations of US history.
….He asserted that the Democratic Party promotes “everything that is contrary to the word of God.” He also exclaimed, “Social justice is a cancer. Social justice means you are ruled by whatever the mob does. What social justice does is destroy individual responsibility.”
….Pastor Cruz is a fiery speaker whose rhetorical red meat is well-received by hardcore Republican and tea party audiences. He regularly has compared Obama to Fidel Castro and routinely echoes the no-surrender calls of his son. At a “freedom rally” at the Alamo in 2012, he vowed, “We’ve had enough compromise…enough of Establishment Republicans that don’t stand for anything.”
WATCH: Ted Cruz’s Dad Calls US a “Christian Nation,” Says Obama Should Go “Back to Kenya”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/ted-cruz-rafael-father-video-christian-tea-party
I already posted this here over a week ago, asleep at the switch, are we?
Teabaggers are demographically doomed.
Permanent Democrat Supermajority.
Life will be great under Hillary Clinton’s DHS/NSA gulag regime (see also the list of Clinton associates who died under mysterious circumstances in yesterday’s bits), think Auschwitz with wi-fi.
I already posted this here over a week ago, asleep at the switch, are we?
Sorry. Didn’t see it. I have a life. Right now that life includes doing some work on a laptop looking at an island on an abnormally cool rainswept day.
off topic political trolling
Off topic? Not at all. That bats#!t crazy wing of your party has a direct effect on the American economy and society - and is directly affecting the level of venom and rhetoric on this blog.
For example: Look at Ted Cruz’s Dad’s use of the word “Marxist” to describe the left - also look as his framing Repus vs Dems as “good vs evil” and God vs Evil . 4 years ago the word was “Socialist”. That lost its power and so they moved on to “Communist” now “Marxist” and now “Evil”.
I can see this directly in the linear sequence on how someone like tj addresses me and others on this blog.
At first I was called a “Socialist”, then Commie, then Marxist, then as supporting an “evil” doctrine. This is all an offspring of the increasingly venomous rhetoric coming out of the far-right. This is tearing at the social fabric of America.
That my friend (sure) is not off-topic.
You forgot Statist. Aren’t you (or weren’t you once) a Statist?
good versus evil…you mean like enemies?
Welcome back, right back to the off topic political trolling.
I didn’t personally insult anyone, say anything racist (which has nothing to do with housing) or post a couple dozen posts saying the same thing.
Brazilian Tranny,
You insult yourself.
Republicans have pretty thin skins anymore, especially as they come to realize their love affair with that crazy doomsday cult is bringing about their removal from power. Even comments on the weather can trigger republican apoplexy at this point. Be gentle, if you want to avoid a spit bath.
Hey Rio, I’m heading down to Sao Paulo for work in a few weeks.. What should I expect? Is it dangerous (am I going to have people trying to snatch my laptop in the streets at 8AM) like Mexico, or not that bad? I’m just not sure what I should and should not bring with me; not going to stroll around with thousands of dollars worth of crap on me if it’s very dangerous.
I’m going to be staying in the Jardim area. Flying into Sao Paulo and taking a cab down to the hotel; will need to take a cab to a few different locations to meet with customers.
Should I bring my Mexico gear (no cell phone, cheap laptop, backpack) or can I bring my normal travel gear?
Sao Paulo for work in a few weeks.. What should I expect? Is it dangerous
I’ve been there but I don’t know a lot about Sao Paulo - but it disturbs me a bit. Look out the window flying into it - just the endless mass of city and people that never ends. You can be standing in what seems to be the “downtown” areas with larger hi-rises and look off into the distances and see 5 or 6 more “down towns”. The Jardim area is an upscale area. Great restaurants and shopping but stores are way more expensive than the USA. If you’re into nightlife, anything can be found there.
I’m biased but Mexico scares me more than Brazil. In Rio, I always walk around with a cell-phone and almost everyone has one. I would bring a cheaper laptop and phone if I had a choice though. Besides the airport or nicer hotels, take taxis at a “taxi point” where they line up on certain streets (ponto de táxi) “Where is a taxi point”? Onde é um ponto de táxi? Or ask the hotel in English. Those are safer than random street taxis. Make photocopies of you passport and papers and leave your originals locked up in your hotel. Don’t wear a Hawaiian shirt, black socks and plaid Bermuda shorts with topsiders. If mugged, don’t resist. If someone tried to kidnap me, I’d fight and let them kill me first but that’s just me. Be wary. Just act like you are traveling in Mexico and you’ll be fine. It should be fun and interesting. (You have to have a Brazilian Visa stamp in your passport to go to Brazil.) A friend got here without one and they sent him Back to the USA on the next flight. Have fun!
take taxis at a “taxi point” where they line up on certain streets (ponto de táxi)
Even better:
Have your hotel call a taxi for a specific time. They know the taxi companies they call. There’s no way I’d ever go all the way to Brazil on business and not see Rio de Janeiro if I’d never been but that’s just me.
If you’re doing business in Brazil, usually the Brazilian business people will take good care of you too. Ask them about the Sao Paulo real estate market and feel them out. (about the market of course)
If you like meat, go to a Churrascaria (Brazilian Steak House with all kinds of meat) Sao Paulo has some of the best Japanese/Sushi in the world. Juice bars on corners have dozens and dozens of different fruit. (Including mangos)
‘I know it’s early to talk about the 2016 presidential race, but that’s only true for normal people: ideologues of one sort or another like me and my Twitter followers are already deep into it, and with good reason. That’s because the stakes have never been higher. It’s important who sits in the Oval Office, yes, but this time around it’s crucial – because the survival of our republic, the future of constitutional government in America, and the peace of the world hinges on it. And that dark cloud on the presidential horizon, which is already casting a huge shadow over the political landscape, is none other than Hillary Clinton.’
‘Hillary is bad on … everything. From foreign policy to civil liberties to you-name-it, she’s the ultimate Un-libertarian. And I’m not just talking about her formal positions on the issues, although those are horrific enough: it’s her self-righteous mien in taking those positions, her moralistic preening combined with a sensible-shoes “pragmatism” that really does more than merely irk. Indeed, it points to a fanaticism with religious roots which, as Murray Rothbard pointed out in a trenchant essay, energizes Saint Hillary with a theological fire aimed at remaking the world by stamping out “sin.”
‘Now you may think this impulse is limited to the Religious Right, and, indeed, they are the most well-known proponents of this faith-through-politics approach, but what our “mainstream” media leaves out of this pat theory is the existence of the Religious Left – an equally fanatic ideology that has its roots in the nineteenth century “Social Gospel” epitomized by the pious Methodism that infused young Hillary when she was just a wee harridan.’
‘Methodism was the chief expression of a peculiarly American religious movement: post-millennial pietism (PMP), which holds that Christ will not return until and unless the thousand-year Kingdom of God is established on earth. Not only that, but it is the duty of all Christians to ensure that the Kingdom is established, and, since failure to do so threatened their own salvation, the PMP’ers did not shy away from using the State to bring about this happy event. Human beings, not God or His Angels, will usher in the Kingdom, they believed, and by their actions provoke the Second Coming. That’s the theology: its political expression was the stamping out of “sin.”
‘In the old days, this meant, as Rothbard put it, outlawing “virtually any form of enjoyment.” Our modern day secularized version, however, defines it as eradicating any sort of political incorrectness: e.g. “greed,” “inequality,” high-sugar drinks, “racism” (very broadly defined, to be sure). In the foreign policy realm this means a holy crusade against “terrorism” – and indeed any government or non-state actor anywhere on earth that defies Washington’s diktat.’
‘Hillary the crusading harridan is the perfect embodiment of this tenacious evil. It was she who hounded Bill into bombing the Serbs in the name of “humanitarianism,” which resulted in the murder of over 5,000 people – and culminated in the establishment of the very first European state whose chief executive could credibly be charged with organ-trafficking. It was Hillary who carried the banner of the War Party during the 2008 Democratic primaries, refusing to repudiate her avid endorsement of the Iraq war – even when it was politically expedient to do so, and long after the rest of the country had rendered judgment on that unmitigated disaster. Her tenure as Secretary of State was marked by a series of “humanitarian” interventions, not only in Libya – where a phony never-was-going-to-happen “humanitarian disaster” supposedly threatened Benghazi (of all places!) if we failed to overthrow Qadaffi – but also in Syria, where she angled to get the Obama administration to sign on to full-bore regime change. Out of office, she did not disappoint: while Obama was fulfilling her Syrian agenda, or trying to, her quasi-religious post-millennialism came right to the fore:
“The Assad regime’s inhuman use of weapons of mass destruction against innocent men, women and children violates a universal norm at the heart of our global order, and therefore it demands a strong response from the international community, led by the United States.”
‘Ah yes, Our Global Order – otherwise known as the Kingdom of God on Earth.’
‘And because the Guardians of Our Global Order are charged with such a heavy responsibility – the enforcement of Global Virtue – we’ll have none of this nonsense about “civil liberties,” which is, after all, just shorthand for License to Commit Sin. Hillary quite naturally hates the Internet, as her response to Matt Drudge’s outing of her husband’s dalliances made all too clear:
“We’re all going to have to rethink how we deal with the Internet. As exciting as these new developments are, there are a number of serious issues without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function.”
So, who are we quoting?
Not that I plan on voting for Hillary (or any one else, for that matter), but this “Elect a Democrat/Socialist, and the world will end” BS is getting tiresome.
(Especially since electing Republicans seem to suck even worse, from my own narrow, personal perspective)
but this time around it’s crucial
That’s what we say every time right? Yet somehow we stumble on, testing our ability to survive every variety of sociopath ever invented…
I think that there are only two things that the Nation could not survive. (1)Open borders (2) too much national debt
It seems like the best strategy to avoid both is a Tea Party Congress and a Democrat in the White House since an establishment Republican President might just be able to push through amnesty and the money boys will never support a Republican Presidential Candidate who would act like Eisenhower and deport the illegals over the objections of businesses that want the cheap labor. The Tea Party is also needed to keep deficit spending in check. Far from the perfect government but the best the middle class can reasonably hope to happen.
This guy is breaking new ground. We’ve got a Methodist politician being attacked for her religion. I wonder if this has ever happened before.
You know, after all these years of being a libertarian, I started realizing how statist “Star Trek”’s Federation is. I lost interest in that and most other movies and TV series that have as their real plot, something that threatens “their” world view of order.
Hillary is a Trekkie!
I think someone a few weeks back made a point that Elizabeth Warren stands more as a chance of being elected than Hillary, precisely because of how people perceive Hillary, as in this article. However, you have to fear more the ones you know nothing about while the electorate idiots vote for the unknowns. It’s like a 2000 page bill you vote for to be able to see what’s in it.
“Real Libertarians (All 20 of them) would be nuts to vote for today’s Repubs.”
thanks for looking out for us rio…we know you only have the best intentions for us.
Well, there is some truth to it.
Most of my friends who complain about bank bailouts, deficits, the ACA, and all-things-Obama wanted to elect Romney. Now, they’re talking up Christie. Those two are absolutely electable but they’re far from the “don’t tread on me” types they’re calling for.
When I ask, what about Paul or Johnson, they look at me, at best, as if they’ve never heard of them…or, at worst, as if they are space aliens.
Why do they like Christie so much? I can’t see what the appeal is. Do they think that he’ll stay away from abortion and other religious topics?
For a moderate voter I can see it. For them, I suspect it’s mostly because the letter after his name is different from the letter after Obama’s (or Hillary’s), ie - it’s about being on the winning team, not voting your conscience. These are the same people who thought Romney would abolish abortion, the ACA, etc…
By “for them” I meant for the non-moderates I referenced earlier.
Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%
http://www.infowars.com/which-america-do-you-live-in-21-hard-to-believe-facts-about-wealthy-america-and-poor-america/
The future belongs to Lucky Ducky
Want to buy an overpriced house? Then California is the place for you.
The most amazing thing about this story is that California’s home prices rebubbled while the economy was still in the crapper, thanks to the influx of investors from elsewhere. Has it ever happened this way before?
Breaking News Economy grew strong 2.8% in the third quarter
For expensive housing, you can’t beat California
Julie Schmit, USA TODAY 1:31 p.m. EST November 6, 2013
California cities hold title to the most expensive housing markets while Midwest cities are the least expensive.
Story Highlights
* Malibu, the most expensive housing market, is seven times pricier than U.S. average
* New York is the only state with markets among most expensive and most affordable
* California has the USA’s top five most expensive housing markets
California holds 13 of the top 25 spots for the most expensive housing markets in the U.S., Coldwell Banker data shows.
Malibu was ranked the most expensive place to live, with the average list price for a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home there at $2.15 million.
On the other end of the spectrum? A same-sized home in Cleveland listed for $63,729 — without the proximity to the Pacific Ocean, of course.
Nationwide, the average listing price of a four-bedroom, two-bath home in more than 1,900 markets was $301,414, based on data gathered from listings during the first six months of this year. Home prices in many markets have risen since then.
The top five most expensive markets were in California. No. 2 behind Malibu is Newport Beach at almost $1.8 million.
In contrast, 15 of the 25 most affordable markets were in the Midwest. Following Cleveland is Garfield Heights, Ohio at $66,075 and Flint, Mich., at $84,437.
…
California is like a stock that just can not keep people from doubling down for the pops.
California retains its 1848 Gold Rush ethos.
I see nothing on the horizon that will change the Get Rich Quick/Gambling mindset of its residents.
California culture attracts more of the same….kinda like a whorehouse attracts whores because they can identify.
But apartment rentals even by the beach are cheap.
thanks to the influx of investors from elsewhere. ”
yep see all day long here in East Ventura Co. The money comes in from all over the world. How they got the money in the first place I have no idea..
u should see some of the shanties in the central valley they are trying to sell for top dollar. something you and a couple buddies could put up in a few weeks getting 200k.
Just saw a House Hunters last night in SoCal. What in the Sam H**l are those people thinking? They bought a house for around 1M dollars that was 800 sq/ft, needed TONS of work (I wouldn’t consider it livable) and was 8 blocks from the beach. Are you really going to walk 8 blocks with all your stuff from the house to the beach? And, if not, and you’re going to get in the car, are 8 blocks really that different from 3-4 miles (where they could get much more house).
I don’t remember what these people did, but they were young and the jobs weren’t the typical big money professions (I think one of them might have been a teacher). Drove a Nissan (IIRC). Given that they should have an annual income of 300-400K to afford a 1M dollar home, they weren’t what I’d expect, let’s put it that way.
It was the “best” episode I’ve seen in awhile. Totally off the rails insane.
The buyers are on crack. Renting is ar cheaper on the beach.
I’d be shocked if that house that they bought for 1M would rent for more than 2K a month. Honestly, I wouldn’t live in that house for free; that’s how bad it was. If I got it for 100K and could tear it down and build a nice house, then maybe. But 800 sq/ft? And requires a total gut job (and if you’re going to do that, just tear it down and build something that’s got enough sq/ft inside so that you might actually get a non-moron buyer interested)..
I’d spend, at most, 100-150K on that property.
but they were young
Were they knocked up? The HGTV I saw last summer was rife with nondescript clueless millenial preggers in search of granite countertops and double-sinked on-suites. I looked forward to the gay couples; they had some sense of style.
“Want to buy an overpriced house? Then California is the place for you.”
+1 It’s the weather. No? Newfoundland prices are lower.
What is the proper role of the federal government in housing, if any? After all, it is a private consumption good, not a public good as it is misrepresented by the REIC propaganda apparatus.
after bubbles pop, its is their role to make sure lots of cash gets printed to absorb the losses of wall street and big banks.
This is a complete bullshit libtard NY Times article if one was ever screeded. Note how the writer suggests that “nobody is supporting a government role in the mortgage market” any more just before offering up his support for a government role in the mortgage market. And you’ve gotta love using the ACA as a “kludge” to advocate for more government involvement in housing.
If other countries’ housing markets work just fine without Frandie Maces, why do we need one? Somebody must have their fingers in the cookie jar would be my guess.
The Trade November 6, 2013, 12:00 pm
An Argument for Federal Involvement in Housing
By JESSE EISINGER, ProPublica
A home for sale in Moreno Valley, Calif. Congress is debating changes to the mortgage market.Monica Almeida/The New York Times A home for sale in Moreno Valley, Calif. Congress is debating changes to the mortgage market.
Obamacare’s early problems could recast the debate about a mortgage market overhaul.
What does health care have to do with housing prices? A lot, actually.
The stumbles with the Healthcare.gov website and the individual policy cancellations may or may not get resolved soon. But they have served a purpose. They have highlighted the extent to which health care change is a “kludge,” as Paul Krugman recently wrote, a jury-rigged and complicated structure that extends social insurance largely through private sector means, leavened by a passel of government regulations and subsidies.
Obamacare was a concession to the status quo. Many progressives would have preferred a government-run, single-payer plan — Medicare for all — but that was politically impossible. Such a change would have been hugely disruptive, since tens of millions of people would have had to be moved off their policies, and many thousands in the insurance industry would have lost their jobs.
So let’s turn to mortgage market change. Congress is debating what to do about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-owned mortgage insurance companies that collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis.
Worried that the government backs too many new mortgages, the Washington consensus has coalesced around a solution that looks a lot like Obamacare. The leading proposals involve getting rid of the Frannies to have private companies create mortgage-backed securities. The government’s role would be to insure some of those mortgage-backed securities, to subsidize the home purchases of the disadvantaged and to regulate mortgage-market players to prevent predatory practices and risk-taking that could lead to taxpayer bailouts. Senators Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, and Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, have a bill that embodies this harmony.
So what about alternative ideas? There are surprisingly few.
Some conservatives argue for the government to get out of the mortgage market completely. But what passes for the left’s position in Washington is not the opposite of the right’s. The liberal establishment concedes the argument that changes should bring investors back into the housing market and shrink government’s role. They spend their energies pushing to expand and protect housing affordability and access.
The Center for American Progress, a group that has a pipeline to the Democratic mainstream, has played a big role in formulating the current kludge concordance. Even the Center for Responsible Lending, a progressive group dedicated to fighting predatory loans, agrees “with the emerging consensus,” according to a vice president of the group in Senate testimony last month, “that taxpayer risk must be insulated by more private capital.” (The Sandler Foundation, the founding donor of ProPublica, has long been a leading supporter of both organizations.)
What’s almost entirely missing is any unashamedly liberal argument that the government should continue to play a large role in the mortgage market. In fact, it’s taken as a given that too much government involvement is a worrisome thing.
…
Proper role. Eliminate all subsidies and discrimination laws. Eliminate all federal loans.
No loans for brown people!
Is the market cooling down in your area?
they are running out of buyers, time to loosen up credit?
Despite what the hucksters keep pushing, I don’t think credit is very tight. 3 percent or less down payments, people coming off a foreclosure 3 years ago, both very common. I
“they are running out of buyers, time to loosen up credit?”
How much looser can it get??
Fog a mirror loose?
If they can figure out a way to separate themselves from repayment risk, they will give loans to chimpanzees.
Er…don’t housing markets normally cool down every year around holiday season, only to come back after the Souperbowl?
Hot housing markets that are cooling down
Michael B. Sauter, Thomas C. Frohlich and Alexander E.M. Hess, 24/7 Wall St. 10:35 a.m. EST November 5, 2013
Story Highlights
* Ventura: Time it takes to sell a home has increased by more than 60%.
* Minneapolis-St. Paul: Average of 51 days to sell a home
* Many markets where housing has cooled among hardest hit by the housing crisis
The national housing market is by most measures recovering at a healthy clip. Home prices in some of the hardest-hit markets — places like Reno, Nev., and Phoenix, Ariz. — were up by more than 30% in the third quarter of this year, compared to the same period last year. But while many cities have seen housing market activity heat up, others that were recently among the hottest in the nation have cooled off.
Realtor.com’s Quarterly Turnaround Towns Report measures the strength of the recovery in the nation’s large housing markets. The site ranked the markets with the biggest declines in inventory and inventory age, and the biggest increases in home prices, as markets leading the nation’s recovery in growth and demand. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the eight metropolitan areas that were, according to Realtor.com’s rank, among the hottest markets in the country at the beginning of the year, but as of the third quarter have cooled down considerably.
Many of these markets were among the hardest hit by the housing crisis. Cities like Lakeland, Fla., Reno, Nev., and Bakersfield, Calif., had homes lose more than half their value during the collapse. As Alison Schwartz, vice president at Realtor.com, explained, it is not surprising that these markets were among the hottest at the beginning of this year. “Markets that were significantly impacted by the housing crisis have further to accelerate in order to get back to equilibrium conditions — whereas, markets that were less affected by the housing crisis have less room for acceleration.”
It appears, however, that the rapid recovery in these markets has slowed.
One of the most obvious indicators of a cooling housing market is a slowing of home price growth. In places like Ventura, Calif., and Orlando, Fla., home prices rose by roughly 25% last year. But in the most recent quarter, prices rose by just 2.1% and 0.5%, respectively. In all but one of the hot housing markets that are now cooling off, home prices were up 7% or more in the second quarter of this year. Last quarter, however, most rose only 2% or less. In Orlando, home prices climbed 10% in the second quarter but did not grow at all last quarter.
…
“Many of these markets were among the hardest hit by the housing crisis. Cities like Lakeland, Fla., Reno, Nev., and Bakersfield, Calif., had homes lose more than half their value during the collapse”
These were also the last to feel the bubble and my theory is that these areas reinflated first because the investors succeeded there last and these are closest to mind.
There is no reason in the world that prices in Bakersfield should skyrocket like they did this summer other than bubble behavior.
There are still many foreclosures every day and many many empty houses if you walk around and look. there is still miles and miles of perfectly flat land that is available for developers to build new houses, and like I said earlier, people in Bakersfield don’t buy used they buy new. When they are buying used, you can bet it’s a bubble.
That’s not actually true. In fact, places like Reno, NV were among the first to peak and the first to meltdown. Reno was near the peak when places like Seattle were just starting to really get cooking.
It has cooled somewhat in Sacramento, though it is hard to know if it is partly seasonal. There is new home construction for the first time in 5 years.
With rental rates collapsing in Sacramento for the past year… along with housing demand, it’s not seasonal.
http://picpaste.com/pics/06b17e7044daf2960a231f0959cab185.1383833998.png
HA - As noted in the past, it is notable that Family Dollar-like stores are being opened even in San Francisco, much less Sacramento.
This wasn’t the case two years ago.
Companies such as Family Dollar very likely run all sorts of metrics to determine where they should build. That they are building in San Francisco may very well portend that city’s overall trend for years to come.
The dollar store sector has been growing for more than a decade, if not two decades. I went through shopping center school (a real curriculum) and keep up on the periodicals. The 99C Only store in Beverly Hills does fabulous.
Yep…and it’s not surprising. There’s always a need for stores that cater to low-class citizens in high-class towns.
Just ask Whac-A-Bubble.
BTW, I haven’t found ANY dollar stores near me that sell my coveted ice milk.
I’m seriously distressed.
Dollar store = toxic, cheap Chinese crap.
If increased inventory and price reductions is cooling, then yes.
I wouldn’t say it’s cooling down so much but the wave of listings that they predicted hasn’t hit yet. I’m finding people paying 2003 prices which is just obscene.
Fewer listings and higher prices.
More listings, sliding prices.
Cooling ?? I would say its slowed down due to seasonal factors and low inventory but cooling ?? Not at these prices…
“Seasonal” eh…. LOLZ
http://picpaste.com/pics/06b17e7044daf2960a231f0959cab185.1383841724.png
Your denial tells us everything we need to know.
Is the market cooling down in your area?
From what I hear at the lunch table, top Denver nabes are still red hot. Not so top nabes, which are either ghetto or nice, but too far from where the good jobs are (the good jobs are in Boulder, Broomfield, Tech Center, Cheery Creek, Downtown) … are cooling … but my dual income, 200K+ combined income coworkers wouldn’t consider living in the “not so top” nabes, so they pay top dollar. Of course, they are confident that prices won’t fall and that the previous was an aberration.
$200k+ are the top 5%, and the very people who are driving those prices up. Who did you really think was responsible for those prices? Furthermore, why would someone in the top 5% of income want to live in a “not so top” neighborhood?
Is the market cooling down in your area?”
Yes judging by all the open house signs sprouting up.
Could be a top in housing and stocks ?
Nope, where I would buy it’s all way-overpriced “sale pendings.”
This admittedly awesome renovation of a church (reno was done in 2003) is absurdly overpriced. And yet some MOron is signing on the bottom line. Last sold for $629k in 2010. ~$170k profit just for living in the house 3 years. Insane.
Oops…link here
Does it come with a lifetime supply of depression medication?
It should. Cold, dark, and rainy season is upon us. Then again, living in a former church should supply all the salvation needed. I do enjoy the irony that it’s a former church currently owned by a gay couple.
It used to be a Korean church, IIRC. All the diversity in this neighborhood has been COEXISTED out of existence. Nothing but upwardly mobile white transplants now…like the mother of SIX KIDS who moved here from PA so she could ride her bike (with her six kids in it, which is why they moved here (??)). She was profiled the other day on the news because someone stole her bike….You see, this neighborhood is full of yuppies but the alleys are still trolled by transients…all for $700K!
That’s actually a cool place.
his admittedly awesome renovation of a church
We have a few of those in our little burg. The appeal of living in an old church is beyond me.
The inside isn’t bad. I could live there. It’s the outside that looks, what’s the word, institutional maybe? $300k tops.
Are gold traders freaking out over the hot U.S. GDP number for Q3? If these kind of stellar results continue to surprise on the upside, a taper is baked into the caker.
What planet do you live on that you consider 2.8% growth “hot”? Also, it was due to a build in inventories which means slower economic growth in the future. We have an economy creating around 150,000 jobs per month, which does not even keep up with population growth. Gold is slightly down because the dollar is up due to cut in European interest rates. BTW, the stronger dollar will only mean weaker growth in the future.
I don’t think they can end the taper. Low interest rates for a long time. the different Governments- state, federal, local plus cost of school and the new medical insurance requirements will continue to soak up any excess cash normally used to drive a recovery.
Plus a demographic that is older ..
Gold just went up because of a Inflation fear and dollar devaluation
I don’t really see it. I see Japan
Housing just popped off a bottom but will stall out. Stocks probably the same thing.
Maybe PB your Bonds will shine now
If gold was only sold in the US I would agree with you. Under globalization our wages will come down and that is deflationary. But inflation and growth exists in China and India, and they are the big consumers of gold, not the US or Europe.
‘What planet do you live on that you consider 2.8% growth “hot”?’
U.S.A., Planet Earth, where the long-term GDP growth speed limit is something like 2%.
It may be 2% under Obama but it has not been the speed limit coming out of deep recession ever before. We saw growth over 7% under Reagan during some quarters. I would consider over 4% hot growth not 2.8%.
From Wikipedia:
During the Reagan administration, the American economy went from a GDP growth of -0.3% in 1980 to 4.1% in 1988 (in constant 2005 dollars),[29] which reduced the unemployment rate by 1.6%, from 7.1% in 1980 to 5.5% in 1988, but with peaks of around 10.8% in 1983.[28][30] A net job increase of about 21 million also occurred through mid-1990. Reagan’s administration is the only one not to have raised the minimum wage.[31] The inflation rate, 13.5% in 1980, fell to 4.1% in 1988, which was achieved by applying high interest rates by the Federal Reserve (peaked at 20% in June 1981).[32] The latter contributed to a relatively brief recession in 1982: unemployment rose to 9.7% and GDP fell by 1.9%
From e-how: In the fourth quarter of 1982, the economy grew at a slow 0.3 percent rate. Starting in 1983 the quarterly growth rates were 5.1 percent, 9.3 percent, 8.1 percent and 8.5 percent, respectively. The 8 percent-plus growth rate continued into the first two quarters of 1984, before slowing to the 3.5 to 4 percent range. National Bureau of Economic Research data show the economic expansion that started in the fourth quarter of 1982 lasted for 92 months, until the next recession started in July 1990.
Read more: http://www.ehow.com/about_7579731_gdp-fluctuations-during-reagan-years.html#ixzz2jzKJvIzr
That was back when deficits didn’t matter…
He ran smaller deficits compared to the GDP than Obama is running. Still the Democrats did say they were way too large and nobody should be allowed to run them, until Obama came on the scene and now they do not matter to Democrats.
Yes, fair point. See also: Middle East wars.
He ran smaller deficits compared to the GDP than Obama is running.
From day one, Obama inherited the worst depression since the Great Depression. And it was/is structural. Any thing he has tried to do to address it was/is wrongly called “Socialism”.
From day one, Obama inherited the worst depression since the Great Depression. And it was/is structural.
the economy was bad, but obama made it much worse. you don’t know what causes structural recessions/depressions, do you?
it’s attempts by government to ‘fix’ the economy. tarp, MID, solyndra, cash for clunkers. all of them distorting the economy. and all of them are liberal policies. doesn’t matter that tarp happened under bush. it was a liberal policy.
Any thing he has tried to do to address it was/is wrongly called “Socialism”.
you don’t think the takeover of GM (saving the unions) wasn’t out of the fascist handbook? or the government funding of solyndra? that’s money that gone and ain’t coming back.
that’s called price fixing comrade. it cripples economies.
What’s are structural recessions/depressions? That doesn’t make sense. It’s an oxymoron.
what doesn’t make sense??
the economy was bad, but obama made it much worse……
Burp…YadaYadaYada. Damn. You are the most boring poster I’ve seen.
Usually the word structural refers to things happening regardless of the business cycle. An example might be might the steady rise of the portion of the population that is over the age of 65. That’s a phenomenon that goes in years of recession as well as years of positive growth.
then what about it is an oxymoron?
i’m not seeing what doesn’t make sense.
you don’t think the takeover of GM (saving the unions) wasn’t out of the fascist handbook?
You are all over the map. For you, one day Obama is a left-wing “Socialist” and the next day he’s a right-wing fascist. How can he be both?
Make up your mind, fascist is the opposite of socialist. Check your dictionary or history book.
For you, one day Obama is a left-wing “Socialist” and the next day he’s a right-wing fascist. How can he be both?
because socialism isn’t the opposite of fascism. they are both left wing. the fascist just allows some people to run businesses for them. the fascist just tells them what to make and how much they can charge. get it through your thick skull that they’re both left wing comrade.
Make up your mind, fascist is the opposite of socialist.
no, they are both big government. they’re not even close to being opposite. they’re kissin’ cousins.
Check your dictionary or history book.
you can find them on both sides, but logic says they’re very close.
I’m not sure how to make it clearer. Maybe another example would help. Let’s take technological unemployment. Right now Google is working on self-driving cars. If they can that to work well and safely and also get regulatory approval, this could throw lots of people out of work. This technological unemployment would be considered a structural phenomenon because it cause an increase in unemployment regardless of the stage of the business cycle at the time that it was introduced. It wouldn’t matter if we were in this current situation of lousy, weak growth, or if the economy slipped back into recession.
So there can be cyclical causes of unemployment, otherwise known as recessions and structural causes. This is the most common use of the term structural as far as I understand it. That’s why I don’t think that it makes sense to call a recession structural. You could have a situation in which a country’s population experiences long, persistent decline in living standards. That would be a structural phenomenon, but it wouldn’t really be called a recession.
if you say this..
So there can be cyclical causes of unemployment, otherwise known as recessions and structural causes.
then how can you say this?
That’s why I don’t think that it makes sense to call a recession structural.
you can’t call a recession structural?
if, according to you, recessions have both cyclical and structural causes, what’s the problem with calling the ones with structural causes, structural recessions?
You could have a situation in which a country’s population experiences long, persistent decline in living standards. That would be a structural phenomenon, but it wouldn’t really be called a recession.
so you’d call it a ’structural phenomenon’?
because socialism isn’t the opposite of fascism. they are both left wing.
Socialism is left wing. Fascism is right-wing. (Except to Rush Limbaugh who is afraid to own it. )
Socialism is left wing. Fascism is right-wing.
evidently you think if you repeat a lie often enough you’ll get people to believe it. that’s all you’ve got comrade. a lie.
you can’t explain why they’re opposites. you respond with emotion instead of some logic. i told you why they’re very close and you can’t handle it, can you?
socialism and fascism are both from leftist ideologies. they both love big government and rule people with tyranny. they are both evil. they both cause misery. and they both emanate from the same place. they each just have a little different flavor.
you can’t escape it, comrade.
BTW, the stronger dollar will only mean weaker growth in the future.
weaker growth will happen, but not because of a stronger dollar.
“weaker growth will happen, but not because of a stronger dollar”
It will not be the primary factor for weaker growth but the strong dollar over the last year has already hurt the rust belt by making our exports less competitive.
Meanwhile in the low wage countries, they complain because their pay increases will be “only” two percent above the inflation rate. Americans would kill for such a raise.
This is from the Nov. 6, 2013 The Economic Times
NEW DELHI: Employees in India can expect to see their pay increase by an average of 11 per cent in 2014, though after factoring in inflation, the rise would be just 2 per cent, according to the latest Salary Trends survey by ECA International.
the strong dollar over the last year has already hurt the rust belt by making our exports less competitive.
the compensation is that imports become less expensive.
Meanwhile in the low wage countries, they complain because their pay increases will be “only” two percent above the inflation rate. Americans would kill for such a raise.
their complaints show a complete lack of understanding of how an economy works.
Employees in India can expect to see their pay increase by an average of 11 per cent in 2014, though after factoring in inflation, the rise would be just 2 per cent, according to the latest Salary Trends survey by ECA International.
and that’s using the official inflation numbers that i distrust. i suspect their real purchasing power has actually declined.
if you look at countries that have had historically strong currencies, they have had strong economies. weak currencies are associated with weak economies.
intentionally weakening a currency is the province of demand management. it doesn’t help an economy, it hurts it. demand management doesn’t work even though the keynesians want you to believe it does. don’t buy into it, Dan.
I understand and don’t disagree that over an extended period a strong stable currency is best. Devaluations are used by statist types to paper over problems that in the long run are made worse. However, in the short term changes in currency can impact demand.
BTW, NYT just publish an article that shows the impact of devaluing a currency:
CARACAS, Venezuela — Inflation in Venezuela has surged above 50 percent as a plunge in the value of the currency deters investment and makes basic goods harder to find.
Consumer prices jumped 5.1 percent in October, according to a report released Thursday by the central bank. That pushed up inflation over the past 12 months to 54.3 percent, the highest since Venezuela’s central bank began tracking prices nationwide in 2008
“Devaluations are used by statist types to paper over problems that in the long run are made worse.”
yes.
However, in the short term changes in currency can impact demand.
yes, but changes in currency can be natural and beneficial. it’s only when the attempt is made to manipulate a currency that bad things happen. a strengthening currency (price deflation) is good for nearly everyone except government tax collectors. and it’s actually even good for them, but they’ll never believe that. that’s why they’ll always fight deflation.
your example in the NYT about venesuela’s predicament is a good one. the keynesians rule there.
and what you said about the national debt (i think it was you) was also correct. a big problem that will smash us if we can’t get it under control.
Property taxes are due again, I forget for what year it is,The past year or the ,coming one .In SC it costs 3 times more for a rental,then a personal residence,per thousand value.
Between 2 and 3 months rental income just for the property tax.
Same situation in FL. The house I used to rent had property tax of 8K per year and insurance of about 3K. And an HOA of 400/mo. So, call it 15-16K per year in fixed costs. I rented that house for 24K/yr. The owner bought the house for a little over 500K.
Yeah, that was one seriously underwater buyer (he’s since defaulted and the house). Here’s the record of sales in case you’d like to have a good laugh:
01/03/2013 Sold $270,000
11/11/2012 Listing removed
10/27/2012 Listed for sale $252,450
09/05/2012 Sold: Foreclosed to lender $201,600
11/07/2005 Sold $511,175
This is one reason I’d be reluctant to become a FL (effed landlord). At least with maintenance you can have contractors bid for the business…so, somewhat of a “control” on cost. I don’t trust government not to change property tax rules.
Hope and Change
Linked from Drudge: “Unbelievable surveillance video captured flash mobs dashing into store after store and running out with armloads and sometimes entire racks of sporting goods.
(the squad correctly predicted that Justice For Trayvon™ would be achieved by looting Foot Locker)
It has happened at three different Sports Authority stores in the Chicago area.
On Saturday at a Sports Authority on Clark Street, a half dozen entered and stole several racks with lightning fast speed.
(”If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon” — President Barack Hussein Obama)
No one was hurt in the three incidents, though it’s clear the mob stops for no one.
A close look at the robbery on Clark Street shows an employee who tries to intercede gets trampled.”
Forward
What? Did this occur recently? Where’s the connection to Trayvon?
speaking of justice for trayvon™, a friend who works in downtown cleveland just forwarded me this campus safety alert e-mail:
‘this message follows an incident wednesday at 4:59 p.m., when two men attempted to steal a phone from a student. the incident occurred at euclid and e 30th st as the student got off the rta bus, he was approached by two black males ages range from 14-16 years. one black male was wearing a grey jacket, unknown pants, and the other was wearing a red jacket and grey jeans. the males grabbed his cell phone, and during the struggle he was punched and the males ran south bound on e 30th st towards carnegie ave.’
forward
free phones not good enough?
Racist
I heard there’s a waiting list for the free Escalades.
Universal Auto Insurance!
You can buy it after the accident with your Tesla.
So you’re doubling down on your incoherence.
why do i suspect you live in a neighborhood that is 95 percent white?
What, is there something about the presence of non-white people that damages the ability of white people to think clearly and sensibly?
My neighborhood might actually be more than 95% white. Last year my next door neighbor put up security cameras all over the outside of his house after his daughter was threatened by a guy she dated a couple of times. A few years ago this same daughter’s car was vandalized by her then boyfriend at 2:00 AM one day. The kid slashed three of her tires made long scratches in the paint on the side of the car.
Both of the young males involved in this lovely story are white. If I had the time, I could relate a number of other stories of bad behavior by white people in my neighrborhood. But I don’t go and try to ascribe this behavior to some sort of political issue that whites are concerned about.
LOL. Shall I explain the reference to you? Twenty black people are shot in a weekend in Chicago and yet Obama doesn’t come out and say “If I had a son he would look like Trayvon”. In fact, if the crime is perpetrated by blacks, then you don’t hear anything from Obama, Sharpton, Jackson, or any of the other race baiters out there. Only if the crime furthers the race baiter agenda, i.e. white on black crime, does the Racist Political Machine go into action.
So yeah, don’t expect to hear Obama, or any Demoturd discuss black flash mobs committing crimes in Chicago, or any community for that matter… can’t push COEXIST with that kind of news.
racist.
if the crime is perpetrated by blacks, then you don’t hear anything from Obama, Sharpton, Jackson, or any of the other race baiters out there.
Column: Jesse Jackson rallies to stop black-on-black carnage
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-06-12/jesse-jackson-gun-violence-marches/55527742/1
“Each year … about 7,000 African Americans are murdered, more than nine times out of 10 by other African Americans,” Jackson said in a painful acknowledgment of a crisis that for too long has received “drive-by” attention from most black leaders. “We’re going to march in 20 cities” hard hit by the gun violence that has made the streets of America a bigger killing field for young black men in the United States than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been for U.S. troops.
For Jackson, who turned 70 in October, ending the black-on-black carnage in this country could be his last big campaign.
LOL, you’re not talking about the same thing.
The goon appears to be claiming that the flash mobs were motivated by the Trayvon Martin case. He supplies no evidence that there was any such motivation.
Also, once again, the issue in Florida wasn’t white on black crime per se. It was the fact that the killer was questioned for a few hours and then released without charge.
You live in a predominately white area. Therefore, you are racist.
You can’t help it. Take comfort that this is typical of old, white people, especially males.
You live in a predominately white area. Therefore, you are racist.
That’s is also not logical.
Who said anything about logic?
That said, you’re racist. You’re a racist because you’re white.
Yeah, logic ruins all the fun.
Who cares whether you have fun? This is my country now, not yours.
Logic is what I say it is.
Logic is what I say it is.
only in the confused fantasies playing in your brain
Trayvon was black, Obama is half black, and the robbers were black….COINCIDENCE?
Chicago is very close to bankruptcy. They cannot afford to lose very many businesses. The surge in this type of crime will probably be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Chicago and Illinois are examples of what would happen to the US if there was no pesky opposition to Obama’s policies.
“this type of crime”
And what “type” would that be? Whatever you are inferring with that kind of language is probably racis. Bad racis, bad. You should prove you’re not racis by writing a big check to Social Justice Inc. for repamarations to atone for the racis behavior of racis white people.
(the squad correctly predicted that Justice For Trayvon™ would be achieved by looting Foot Locker)
I actually thought of you saying that when I saw the headline :-). And then I wondered if I was even more behind the times and missed when Sports Authority replaced Footlocker in popular culture…
“… an employee who tries to intercede gets trampled.”
He’s lucky he didn’t get nominated for one of my awards.
That employee is racis for trying to intercede.
He needs some Diversity Training™ and more COEXIST stickers.
“He needs some Diversity Training™ and more COEXIST stickers.”
+1 LOL!
Hope and Change
KDVR dot com: “There are nearly 250,000 Coloradans whose health care policies have been or will be cancelled as a result of the Affordable Care Act, the state’s Dept. of Insurance announced on Wednesday.”
Forward
“If you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance” — Barack Hussein Obama
That is going to become the tag line Obama will be remembered by. They had to know there were millions of junk policies out there that wouldn’t even meet “bronze” level requirements and which would be cancelled.
That’s a rather weak attempt at defending the sham that is ObamaCare, In Colorado.
“millions of junk policies out there…”
Where’d you come up with that line?
How is a plan that requires many to pay for services they’ll never use - and do not want to use - at significantly higher cost not a “junk policy” as well?
Obama is a liar and is guilty of fraud. Accept it.
He’s a card-carrying member of the NeoCon-Progressive Party.
Obama is a liar and is guilty of fraud. Accept it.
That’s basically what I said, dude, chill.
And yes, most of the cancelled policies were junk policies. You know, the kind whose holders end up filing for BK when the medical bills pile up and the insurance doesn’t cover it. If your insurance leaves you with 10’s of thousands in unpaid bills, then it’s junk insurance.
And FWIW, those bronze policies are also junk. Only in the USA is a high deductible plan considered reasonable insurance. My European relatives think I’m joking when tell them about people paying deductibles in the thousands.
You didnt spray a republican quantity of saliva when you said it, so you are obviously not angry and frightened enought to be a republican, and therefore you are commiefascholiberosocialist scum that is destroying his America.
Obama is a liar and is guilty of fraud. Accept it.
Maybe……..
“Obama lied because people died”
Maybe he did. How horrible would that be? Is it bad just in politics or morally? Which is worse of the above, he “lied” or people died? Would you lie because people die? Would the answer depend on your profession?
I’ll bet 1000’s of PHd’s in ethics and philosophy dealt with related subjects.
“Obama is a liar…”
“Read my lips, no new taxes…”
Presidents lie. This is news to you?
Haven’t you heard? Those words were never spoken!
My boss has the “Orange County RE is great, home buying is a virtue, and so is getting married” mentality. On Facebook he is seen in several different weddings posing with bride or groom, broad smile. The colleague who just got married is…(drumroll) rumored to be looking for a money pit…er house. He caught my boss’ disease!
But not me. I am too old to be included in social things with my colleagues anyway. My life is about early morning workouts, then grab a breakfast, then go to work…all guys at work except the admin assistant and she is married.
I am still impressed with Oxides NY TImes rent versus buy calculator. No wonder my former roommate never owned a house at least before his late 30s. He walked out of his wedding and I think he is still renting, he had a lot of money last time I knew him. He knew stocks and renting are the way to financial security. I am glad I bailed out on home ownership in my 30s after seeing my house value drop every year.
I just wish I could post that NY Times web site somehow where my colleagues could see it. But it’s not my responsibility to save them from the biggest mistake in their life. Conformity Kool Aid is what it is at my workplace. Won’t happen to me.
http://www.movoto.com/statistics/ca/irvine.htm#city=&time=1Y&metric=Inventory&type=0
A little roll ver in October I see…
“There were a total of 47 price increases and 190 price decreases”
Now that’s significant. Look at the chart for five years. Looks like the bottom of inventory for Irvine was this January through the end of March. However it looks like prices of houses in Irvine are just below their peak of the last ten years. According to Zillow, Irvine house prices on the average peaked to the all time high (even above 2005 prices) in June 2013.
“Conformity Kool Aid is what it is at my workplace”
Yup. That renting is often (nearly always) better than buying has been discussed at length on HBB for years. Regarding marriage, recommend two books:
“Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - and Why It Matters” by Helen Smith
“The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Our Culture” by Liza Mundy
“The Empty Cradle” by Phillip Longman is pretty good as well. Not sure if he’s updated it since the 08-10 change in economic circumstances, though.
Longman was basically saying that if you want the more prosperous and responsible elements of your society to produce at or above replacement rate, you need to take account of it in public policy. You can’t encourage or enable procreation by society’s losers and fund that by taking from the productive elements and just hope it doesn’t burn you in the end.
I read a conservative web site where the social conservative columnist was horrified of the birth dearth among productive people. His solution was expand the discriminatory tax breaks to married couples with children. No flat tax.
Social engineering on the right is no better than social engineering on the left.
My solution is to abolish taxation. I hate social engineers. Just get out of the way and stop trying to control others to your own dream. Let us be free.
The LIEberals, NoseyCon’s and Statist pigs don’t want that.
Just get out of the way and stop trying to control others to your own dream. Let us be free.
I am free. I live your dream Bill.
And we live in your empty skull…. rent free.
The problem with the NYTimes rent to own calculator, as Oxide proved, is that the answer is all about the magical thinking that goes into the assumptions. If you tell it rents and house prices are going to go up, up, up, then it tells you to BUY, BUY, BUY! If you tell it there is deflation baked in the cake, it tells you to RENT. You get whatever answer you want.
This is a fair criticism. It also doesn’t factor in that property tax rates may change. A change like 1.5% to 2.5% is huge over time. And in some places prop taxes are quite a bit higher than that, look at all those dead places in upstate NY that have property taxes over 3%, some even over 4%.
When I put my situation into that NYT calculator the other day, it said I’m better off after 2 yrs. That seems right to me mostly because I did a lot of the work fixing the place up myself so that my modest priced house is nicer than any rental I could get at nearly the same price. (The value of my labor would throw that all out of whack, at least 30k or so if I’d hired people, but I enjoyed doing the work.)
It’s just idiotic for the NYT or anyone else to advise people to buy a house bc they’ll be better off in X years. If you’re not planning to stay a long time (at least 10 yrs, but hopefully more) you deserve to “lose alot of money”, to quote RAL.
My boss has the “Orange County RE is great, home buying is a virtue, and so is getting married” mentality.
Misery loves company.
My former boss, upon hearing that a few of us owned older cars (only a few years, and still very presentable, if a client even cares) and rented, said and I quote, “Maybe these guys aren’t desperate enough” by which he meant we should be in debt (with cars, house, kids) so that we’d be hungrier to go after more business.
My wife and I discuss often how many of our co-workers are so willing to give up their freedom to become part of “the plan.” It’s sad, really.
Wow good point. Wow that was very honest of your boss. But very stunning.
Turned another way, it also means your boss is not self confident that he can keep his employees who have less debt or no debt.
Giving up their freedom to become part of “the plan.” Great way to put it. Imagine if most employees were debt free and rented, the pay would have to go up so that the businesses can retain their employees.
My boss still does not fully trust me and I think feels threatened that I can leave anytime. In fact I said before he hired me that I would stay three or four years and see if I don’t want to go back consulting. Dumb of me of course, but he did not bat an eye at the time. I guess he wants me to join the club - get married and become a home moaner.
the pay would have to go up so that the businesses can retain their employees.
Well, there are other things at play such as globalization, etc, but in general yes I would agree. My wife recently quit a job she couldn’t stand when it was revealed that she would be expected to work 14 hr days from September-December (they hid this fact from her during the interview).
You wouldn’t believe the number of people who approached her in private, shocked but also very congratulatory that she had the “courage” to leave. The reality is, we have the savings to allow for this. We are very private with our matters, but most of these people openly shared that they could never do what she did due to debts, kids, etc. She has since secured a better gig with regular hours without losing much in salary (~10%) to do it…
Bill, it’s an excellent calculator, and thank you for sticking with me on this. I really like this calculator because it spurs a discussion about actual housing… on a housing blog… imagine that.
If you start off with a huge wad of cash like $275K, renting and investing is favored in a huge way because investing that huge wad of cash, over 30 years, will outperform the house. If you only have, say, $25K, the house will be better after 30 year than the gains from $25K. The second scenario is more representitive of middle class America.
And then there are those like Dale who liked to move to accomodate the family. And those like Bill who simply don’t want to buy. These are perfectly valid lifestyle choices. But the calculator can put some numbers on the choices. No one should buy if they don’t want to.
Skye, of course you can manipulate the variables to produce the outcome you want. But you can run a lot of controls by manipulating just one variable. In Bill’s example of $275K up front, the equation depends mostly on the rate of return. In Dale’s case of moving every 4-5 years, the equation would probably favor renting because he would spend too much money on the closing costs for selling and buying each new house. In my case of long-term stay-in-place, the equation is more sensitive to the original rent and the yearly % rent increase. But the calculator can reveal all that.
Joe, allowing a variable to change over time would be a much more complex calculator. You might be able to simulate it by running several sequential scenarios. Put in the numbers, run 30 year scenario, but write down the numbers for, say, Year 5. Then re-do the down payment and years of the mortgage term, change your taxes, run the 30 years, take the next 10 years, and pretend it’s Year 6-15. It would be tedious, but not impossible.
Do they have a “will I eventually be underwater and run for the hills with my stuff in boxes” calculator? Or an “OMG, $200,000 is a lot of money!” calculator?
I know you’re being snarky, but actually, but as Blue says, you can manipulate the variables for both of those. If you’re in an area where $200K is a lot of money for a house, then rents in that area are probably very low too. Just input the low rent and a low % rent increase to see how it stacks up vs. buying. To simulate a real OMG moment, live in Mom’s basement and input $10 for rent. ($10 is the lower limit.)
To simulate going underwater fast, simply adjust the Annual Home Price Change slider to a negative number, and watch your house value craaaater. The lower limit is 10% loss/year, so if you want to drown even faster, you would input a low % down payment (high LTV).
Here’s the link again for the lurkers:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calculator.html?_r=1&
‘I know you’re being snarky’
No I’m not. I took a family’s stuff to the dump yesterday. Had they been around, I could have asked them, “did you use a rent/buy calculator”? Do you suppose it mattered, when most people walk away because they are underwater. Most people are kicked out because they lost a job or lost income. Almost nothing about a foreclosure is related to what rents were when they bought the shack.
Again, if there is a bubble, a lot of people using this may lose a job or be forced to move. It’s the bubble that will change their circumstances, and you can’t punch a few keystrokes and see that risk. It would be nice if DC and the central banks were looking out for us, but noooo. They are actively driving this thing.
Just something to think about.
“Just something to think about.”
That’s’ a tall order for dumb. borrowed. money.
Yeah I think so. I think the point someone made above that rent increases are not uniform can apply to every historical item. But Case Shiller seems to be “uniform” in saying house prices over a hundred years have historically increased by 1% above the inflation rate. So rents over a long time should have some average.
Everything is cyclic. So rents should too have an average number.
The folks bought a house in Costa Mesa around 1971 for $30,000.00. It wasn’t a bad area to grow up in. They sold in the 90’s and I just found out that the current owner paid over $500,000.00 for the 1900 Sq Ft home in 2006.
A fool and his money, I guess. What pisses me off most is that the clown who bough it tore out mom’s front landscaping and painted the house lime green.
and painted the house lime green ??
They must be Portuguese…. :>)
and painted the house lime green ??
They must be Portuguese…. :>)
Dude that’s funny - I don’t know much about Portugal. But Mexico’s paint tastes are wilder than Brazilians. Much.
Another Drudge link, this from Moonie rag the Washington Times:
Colorado voters slap down Bloomberg-backed income tax hike
Biggest loser: Bloomberg’s election spending won little for departing NYC mayor
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/6/colorado-voters-hand-bloomberg-another-setback/
Dear Michael Bloomberg,
Go f*ck yourself, you can’t buy our elections.
Regards,
Colorado voters
There was no chance prop 66 would pass. I don’t even know why they bothered even trying.
Bllomberg, Bill Gates and other rich poured money?
Yup. And it lost, big time. Asking for any tax increase in Colorado is like wishing for a pony, or perhaps one of those candy defecating unicorns.
Got TABOR?
In some ways Colorado is very progressive. Besides legalized MJ, church attendance is low by national standards. But Coloradans are also very tightfisted with taxation and spending. The Dems hate TABOR with a passion, but it isn’t going away.
In the northeast, particularly in the New England States, the region is the least religious. One thing I don’t like about being in my 50s as opposed to 20s - I think people now in their 20s will live to see the day when the amount of American religious people is a minority that religion is no longer part of politics.
Bloomberg’s involved because the NeoCon-Progressive Party wants to sew-up Colorado once and for all. Problem for Bloomberg is that Colorado is flyover territory.
As goes Colorado so goes the Mountain West* must be the refrain among the coastal elitist crowd.
* Except for Utah, of course. But that state is full of LDS freaks, so who cares where it goes?
What a great back to the future idea, Trolleys
Cities across the country are investing in old-fashioned streetcars to solve what’s known as the “last mile” problem. The hope is that trolleys will make it easier for people get to their final destination.
http://www.npr.org/2013/11/07/243518385/to-get-around-town-some-cities-take-a-step-back-in-time
That’s a nice idea, but public transportation is for the poors. And racis white people don’t want to brush elbows with blacks and browns.
I took the bus to work today, and while waiting to transfer buses downtown (at 6 a.m.) some woman asked if I had any weed for sale.
goon
We use the Los Angeles subway system for adventures and have great experiences thus far. I took it to a job interview at 6:30AM on a Monday morning, and met such interesting professionals. Lot of Attorneys, CPAs, and such. I guess every town has a different flavor, maybe?
The bus is a different animal, I concur. It’s like a class in abnormal psych to observe. There are nut-jobs everywhere.
The bus is definitely different than the train. The bus also takes longer than biking in any kind of urban setting. Which is why I bike to the train.
Public transit definitely isn’t for poors in cities that do it right and that have significant density.
Downlow Joe has entered the building.
I was speaking to an attorney friend recently. He said that when you get arrested now in Colorado, the cops will take your weed and put it in an envelope along with your keys, wallet, phone, etc, and give it back to you when you get out of jail.
while waiting to transfer buses downtown (at 6 a.m.) some woman asked if I had any weed for sale.
Something about your appearance?
Or maybe it was his odor.
Just don’t travel through Deming, NM with that odor.
Or the ability to stand up straight.
some woman asked if I had any weed for sale.
Well…did you?
Prices want to fall but borrowers won’t let them
The Drum
By ABC’s Alan Kohler
Posted Wed 6 Nov 2013, 9:06am AEDT
As the world of technology pushes for greater efficiency and productivity, the only thing standing in the way of falling prices is our debt addiction, writes Alan Kohler.
It is a great irony of the modern world that central banks are forced to battle the destructive effects of higher productivity.
If that statement seems ridiculous, bear with me.
Central banks everywhere are currently engaged in a desperate war against deflation, with zero interest rates and money printing.
In Europe it may be a losing battle - the EU appears to be one downturn away from deflation; in the US, inflation is 1.2 per cent and falling; in Australia, we have had tradable goods deflation for about two years and the only reason there is not overall deflation is because of non-tradables, like health, education, construction and child care services.
In fact, global prices have been trying to fall for 20 years because of the productivity improvements of the Digital Revolution and the entry of cheap labour into the world’s workforce as a result of globalization.
The credit crisis of 2007-08 then tipped this trend towards lower inflation into potential outright deflation by crushing global demand. Demand has not fully recovered, especially in Europe but also in the United States. Meanwhile, wages are rising in China but technology is continuing to drive up productivity through automation, while new, cheaper, labour forces keep entering the global trading system.
Central banks are trying to keep inflation within what they regard as the optimum target band of 2-3 per cent. They used to be battling to keep it down to that level; now they’re trying to keep it up to 2 per cent.
Why? Because of debt.
During the second half of the 19th century prices fell consistently - that is, there was deflation - because of the impact on productivity of the Industrial Revolution. Between 1870 and 1900, the purchasing power of the US dollar doubled as prices came down.
But in those days there wasn’t much debt. For those with savings and fixed incomes, deflation is wonderful, but for those with debt, it is catastrophic since the value of the dollar repaid is greater than the dollar borrowed.
Households, businesses and governments around the world are now deeply in debt after three decades of falling interest rates, asset price bubbles, a desire to consume today rather than put it off, and aggressive banking practices.
To preserve economic and social order, and prevent the crippling impact of deflation on an indebted society (like what happened in Japan after 1990), central banks are now working to preserve the world’s debtors.
That means fighting the impact of the third great technological revolution - the Digital Revolution (the first two were Agricultural and Industrial).
When the Industrial Revolution reduced costs, debt wasn’t an issue and prices could be allowed to fall. In fact, society’s most powerful were savers, not borrowers: for them deflation was a good thing, so they made sure it happened.
This time around it’s different: borrowers are ascendant and central banks are working for them, not savers. In fact, savers are being plundered with super low interest in the name of promoting aggregate demand and maintaining inflation.
The Federal Reserve’s “dual mandate” requires it to “… promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates”.
Leaving aside the fact that that’s three things, not two, the mandate calls for “stable prices”, not “rising prices”. The Fed has determined that this means prices rising by 2 per cent a year, not falling by 2 per cent a year.
If it weren’t for the high levels of debt, I believe they would not be fighting the tendency of prices to fall because of the Digital Revolution and would see “stable prices” as moderate deflation, not inflation.
By the way, the Reserve Bank’s mandate is to “contribute to: the stability of the currency of Australia; the maintenance of full employment in Australia; and the economic prosperity and welfare of the people of Australia”. It doesn’t even mention “price stability”, let alone a target band of 2-3 per cent inflation.
In yesterday’s monetary policy statement, the governor, Glenn Stevens, wrote that the Australian dollar is still uncomfortably high.
Uncomfortable, that is, for the preservation of inflation, which is implicitly needed to “achieve balanced growth in the economy” - that is, the replacement of the resources investment boom with domestic non-mining industrial growth.
Without inflation, borrowers get crushed and don’t spend, because they are keen to reduce debt. Since most people are borrowers these days, the promotion of domestic demand requires some inflation so that the value of debt reduces naturally over time - and thus a lower currency.
That’s why “currency wars” became a thing last year, although it’s turned out to be more a low-level cold war than a hot one.
The real war is between monetary policy and the Digital Revolution - between the world of finance trying to reduce the value of money and therefore debt, and the world of technology pushing for greater efficiency and productivity, to drive prices lower and the value of money higher.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-06/kohler-prices-want-to-fall-but-borrowers-wont-let-them/5072388 - 229k -
The Central Banks can conjure all the money they want, but unless it winds up in hands of J6P’s around the world, via wage increases, demand for goods and services will not grow. I don’t know how this will happen, unless the Banking Clan gives the captains of industry marching orders, and even then I doubt that will push wages up.
It reminds me of a documentary I once saw, where a trap for catching monkeys was deployed. It was amazingly simple: a box with a small hole and a piece of candy inside. The monkey would grab the candy but when he did his hand wouldn’t fit through the hole. He would want the candy so much that he wouldn’t release it, even as his captors approached. Greed overwhelmed common sense.
It seems to be the same with the elite. Like the monkeys, they won’t let go, even though history is rife with revolutions and firing squads. Greed always wins.
One of my great joys when it calls comes down will be to watch the monied and connected elitists eat each other.
I may even cheer loudly as they to pillage and rape each other.
They sound like the Reavers on Firefly.
As the world of technology pushes for greater efficiency and productivity, the only thing standing in the way of falling prices is our debt addiction, writes Alan Kohler.”
Government pushing inflation because they have the most debt !!
Pushing on a string..
It’s different here because they put ketchup on their pizza.
Warnings of major Brazilian housing bubble go unheeded
http://www.independent.ie/business/commercial-property/warnings-of-major-brazilian-housing-bubble-go-unheeded-29733516.html
Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff is disregarding warnings about a housing bubble and is stoking demand instead by helping people buy more homes as prices surge.
Ms Rousseff’s homebuilding programme has propelled demand as she seeks to stimulate the economy before next year’s presidential election.
Robert Shiller, six weeks before winning the Nobel Prize for economics, cautioned that such demand may be fueling a bubble as home prices grow twice as fast as rent.
Mortgage debt as a percentage of disposable household income has climbed to a record 15pc, almost double the level at the start of Ms Rousseff’s term.
Brazil’s real estate credit remains a relatively small part of gross domestic product and overall credit compared with other emerging markets, and growth has been rapid because of a small base, Tulio Maciel, the head of the central bank’s economic research department, told reporters in Brasilia on October 29.
Home prices in Brazil’s biggest cities, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, have surged 188pc and 230pc since January 2008 – about double the pace of rent,
It’s different here because they put ketchup on their pizza.
Uggghh, so does Poland. Pizza place on every corner and ketchup everywhere. Yuck.
Zapiekanki?
They have lots of standard pizza, too. Very good crust, but toppings are a little odd to us. Light on sauce, but all the ketchup you want.
‘Chicago Home Inventory’
‘The home inventory numbers are still on the decline and at record low levels. At the end of October there was only a 4.3 month supply of single family homes and a 3.3 month supply of condos and townhomes. There just aren’t enough sellers willing and/ or able to put their homes on the market to satisfy current demand. Many sellers still have to bring too much money to closing because of their loss in home value and others, having heard that prices are on the rise, want to hold out for better pricing. The thing that the holdouts often miss though is that by holding out they are assuming that housing is going to appreciate more over the next year or two than alternative asset classes such as stocks or that the next house they buy will also be more expensive if home prices continue to rise.’
‘I’m also beginning to believe that if more of these shadow home sellers came in off the sidelines we’d see much more activity than we are currently seeing. You might ask why I didn’t believe this before but earlier in the year we were seeing increasing contract activity. Now we’re not.’
I’d guess Chicago has an inordinately large number of vampire foreclosures continuing to occupy after mortgage default at the pleasure of their lenders. I’d like to know who many renters enjoy similar federally-funded forbearance on free occupancy rights.
Who knew that foreclosure moratoriums all over the country would lead to a massive drop in the foreclosure rate?
Housing recovery far from equal
Charlene Crowell | 11/6/2013, 6:34 p.m.
With the annual holiday season approaching, many across the country will soon be celebrating with families and loved ones. Many such gatherings will toast the season and its blessings.
But for families still troubled by delinquent mortgages and foreclosures, this time of year has another meaning. These consumers are wondering if they will have a home this holiday season. Although September 2013 marked the 23rd consecutive monthly drop in the nation’s foreclosures, approximately 902,000 homes remained in some state of foreclosure.
Additionally, mortgage delinquencies, the omen of the likelihood of foreclosure, has troubled states and metro areas, according to new data released by CoreLogic, a leading residential property information, analytics and services provider.
On the foreclosure front, 51,000 foreclosures were completed in September. Since the September 2008 onset of the housing crisis, 4.6 million foreclosures have occurred nationwide. By comparing September 2012 foreclosures to those of last month, the nation saw a 39 percent decline or 448,000 fewer lost homes.
But if you live in Florida, California, Texas, Michigan or Georgia – you are a resident of one of the five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures during the past 12 months. In fact, these states accounted for almost half of all completed foreclosures nationally. Florida alone had 115,312 completed foreclosures.
North Carolina (27,135), Arizona (24,269), Washington (20,547), Tennessee (19,710), Missouri (13,654) and Virginia (13,130) complete the list of the 10 highest states with completed foreclosures in this same time span.
CoreLogic also analyzed foreclosures in metro areas. The five highest areas with completed foreclosures – again over the past 12 months – were Atlanta (24,309), Chicago (20,347), Tampa -St. Petersburg (15,754), Phoenix (14,821) and Orlando (12,062).
Additionally, 63 percent of Georgia’s foreclosures were in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Similarly, in Arizona, 62 percent of the state’s foreclosures were in the Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale MSA.
Delinquencies, mortgages that are 90 days or more in arrears, show an even broader effect. The national average of seriously delinquent mortgages stands at 5.2 percent. Yet 14 states have delinquencies above that of the national average. The states with the highest percentages of delinquencies are: Florida (11.9 percent), New Jersey (10.6 percent), Nevada (8.1 percent), New York (7.9 percent) and Maryland (7.2 percent).
…
I love the smell of lithium in the morning:
http://insideevs.com/third-tesla-model-s-fire-in-past-5-weeks-breaks-out-after-accident/
A tornado will always find a trailer park and metal parts in the road will always find a Tesla.
By Ben Klayman and Bernie Woodall
DETROIT (Reuters) - Tesla Motor Inc’s(NSQ:TSLA) Model S electric car has suffered its third fire in six weeks.
The Tesla Motors Club website contains pictures and a story about another fire involving a Model S on Wednesday afternoon that a company spokeswoman confirmed. The accident occurred in Smyrna, Tennessee, where Nissan Motor Co makes the Leaf electric car.
Tesla, whose shares were down 3.7 percent in premarket trading, said it has been in touch with the driver, who was not injured.
“Our team is on its way to Tennessee to learn more about what happened in the accident,” Tesla spokeswoman Elizabeth Jarvis-Shean said in a statement. “We will provide more information when we’re able to do so.”
The company said the fire was the result of an accident and was not a spontaneous event.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol said the incident occurred on Interstate 24 in Smyrna around 1:30 pm.
“It’s possible that it ran over a piece of metal in the roadway,” police dispatcher Kathy Bryant said. “There was extensive damage.”
Racist.
Your anti-white, anti-elitist streak is becoming apparent.
I visited the thread at TMC this morning. Panicked fanboys proclaiming a conspiracy by the Big Three, or shopped images, or the car was in a collision.
Musk has inherited Jobs’ reality distortion field.
And the distortion includes his views on fuel cell cars. As I have said often on this board Platinum is my favorite metal investment. With in a few years $50,000 fuel cell cars will be available.
Interesting. This may be the first incident that maybe shouldn’t have happened. I’ll be curious to hear more if the exact nature of the damage that lead to the fire gets reported.
Oh dear.
‘With signs that Montreal’s more than decadelong condominium boom could be fading, some local developers are repositioning or even pulling projects due to waning demand. Nearly 1,500 people signed up for information on Samcon’s 190-unit Drummond Condominiums project when the developer began presales in January, Mr. Scalia said. But sales were slow, and Samcon pulled the project from the market in May for a full redesign with a new architect.’
“When we came out on the market, there was a glut of units that were launched in our district downtown,” Mr. Scalia said.’
‘Montreal’s condo-resale market also is showing strain. Listings have soared 24% in the past 12 months, according to the Greater Montreal Real Estate Board. Sales, though, have fallen by 15%.’
“It feels like everyone who had to consider buying a condo has already done so,” said Stéphane Côté, president of DevMcGill, a developer with four projects under construction.’
Was Montreal Canada’s shortest bubble?
“U.S. homeownership rate at 18-year low in 3Q”
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-78057961/
This is what happens when prices are massively inflated for……… drum roll please……… 18 years.
But don’t be troubled because the rate will exceed historic highs as this collapse gains strength.
co
has anyone tried medical mj- it’s about 4-5 times stronger than regular weed of 30 years ago. add 2 beers= death on the hywy
have co insurance rates gone up yet? they will
Yes it is very strong, too strong.
Edibles are very, very nice. After running a trail marathon this spring my knees were hurting so I ate one small brownie and it was very “calgon, take me away!”
Wow, I haven’t done weed in 32 years, but the best date my husband and I had (as gf & bf) was when we got massively stoned (mary-jane chocolate chip cookies) and went to the Tar Pits and Disneyland on the same day. We both remember that day. What a hoot. So much fun.
goon
Did it help with your pain from your marathon practice?
Wow, I haven’t done weed in 32 years ??
Yeah…Neither have I…I am tempted though…:>)
You sound like a fun gal, inch. (Not because of the pot)
“Yes it is very strong, too strong.”
Having partaken in the activity quite some time ago, as it became stronger and stronger I found I could no longer enjoy it for a few reasons:
1) My lungs cannot handle the smoke- I am a non smoker
2) The “high” became more like a “scare.” In fact, friends started calling certain strains “Scare Bud” and “Wheelchair”. Not my idea of fun when I find myself wondering if a 911 call is in my near future due to my rapidly deteriorating mental and physical condition shortly after ingestion. I’ll leave it to the professionals like Willy Nelson and Snoop Dog.
Similar experience. Cookies. Couldn’t walk straight, felt uncomfortable. Gave some to our old dog (13 YO), figured he might benefit. He couldn’t walk and I thought, JC, I’ve killed the dog. Had to force him to lie down so he wouldn’t break anything. Good for sleep, though.
“Edibles are very, very nice. ”
I would go for edible MJ when or if I think I need it.
So far no bump in accidents yet that I’ve heard of. Perhaps those who will drive while stones either already have been, or used to be part of the driving while drunk crowd.
We currently pay $150 a month for four cars, though two are liability only.
has anyone tried medical mj- it’s about 4-5 times stronger than regular weed of 30 years
Not my thing since……wait…….I forgot. (come on, that’s funny!)
But from what I’ve heard from Brazilians who have been to the USA and Amsterdam, mj here is like USA’s 30 years ago.
Are you a corruptican or a corrupticrat?
reptiles v. shitlibs
Bedwetters vs. Bedsh*tters (although Bloomberg and Feinstein are both)
“The second home black hole”
(excerpt)
“In today’s US real estate market, I’d say we’re not just “coming off the bottom” – we’re in the full fury of a huge seller’s market, which means it is a great time to sell. Prices may keep going up, or they may ease back down as interest rates rise, but either way there are better places to make money than in a cash-flow-negative rental house. And you can still visit Jackson Hole whenever you like – by taking that $80,000 in cash out of the house, investing it elsewhere, and renting by the month whenever you have the urge to visit there or anywhere else. Even better, try out some home exchanges, as your desirable Seattle home would be of great interest to people everywhere.
The difference to your savings rate will be immense – probably over $25,000 per year, which means you will be more than doubling your savings rate, or halving your time to financial independence. Congratulations!”
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/18/reader-case-study-the-black-hole-second-home/
Considering demand is at 16 years lows, how can it be a “sellers market”?
He means sell now and take gains, don’t hold on to the property and assume price increases. If anything, he’s saying prices may drop again and it would be a buyer’s market. He’s not saying what you’re trying to imply. He’s not as skeptical as you but he’s not in favor of people buying and holding RE they don’t need either.
Isn’t your oft-repeated advice to unload that shack while it’s still overvalued? If houses are selling for more than they’re worth, it sounds like the very definition of a sellers market, no?
Are outlaw banks a thing of the past?
Bulletin Dow industrials lose 152 points and Nasdaq falls 75; Twitter debut a bright spot »
Nov. 7, 2013, 2:47 p.m. EST
Fed’s Dudley blasts big banks for ethical lapses
Says some banks lack respect for law and public trust
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch, Christina Rexrode
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — There is evidence of deep-seated cultural and ethical failures at many large U.S. banks, a top Federal Reserve official said Thursday.
William Dudley, the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, said many large financial institutions display an “apparent lack of respect for law, regulation, and the public trust.”
In remarks at the New York University School of Law, Dudley called for a “cultural shift” at the big banks to restore public trust in the industry.
The New York Fed president said that he hoped government efforts to end the too-big-to-fail culture and shift bank focus to longer-term sustainability would foster the needed change.
Dudley didn’t name any banks in his speech.
Meanwhile, tough enforcement and high penalties would certainly help focus management’s attention to the issue, he said.
Dudley’s tough language is remarkable, as the president of the New York Fed historically has been a voice for Wall Street and the financial sector in Washington policy debates.
Earlier Thursday, Bloomberg reported that Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew has warned banks that the final Volcker rule ban on proprietary trading would be tougher than Wall Street expects.
Taken together, Dudley’s speech and Lew’s warning show an apparent hardening of regulator attitudes toward the biggest banks.
…
There is evidence of deep-seated cultural and ethical failures at many large U.S. banks, a top Federal Reserve official said Thursday.
And there will continue to be until you let them fail.
This is theater: “Taken together, Dudley’s speech and Lew’s warning show an apparent hardening of regulator attitudes toward the biggest banks.”
Dudley, former partner and managing director at the Squid, also said, in that link, “The New York Fed president said he doesn’t support more radical steps that would break up the banks or reinstate the Glass-Steagall law that separated commercial banks from investment banking activities.
What would reimpose discipline on Wall Street would be bring back a system where bad decisions cause losses for the companies. Government guarantees of too big to fail companies, along with consumer deposits held hostage to Wall Street’s gambling operations allows Wall Street to continue a credible threat of harming the economy at large. Which gives the Fed and government the cover it wants to continue to bail out Wall Street. Because the Fed, government and Wall Street are involved in one very big circle jerk, feeding money to each other and getting kickbacks and favors.
There’s a slow but growing understanding of the parasitic nature of Wall Street, merely taking a cut of as many transactions as it can, claiming consumer surplus for itself where it can. But people still have their bread and circuses. While there are more people who feel they are benefited by the current system rather than screwed by it, the system will continue. It will change eventually because I don’t see Wall Street or politicians as being able to control their appetite. That will push society to the tipping point. I don’t know how long it will take though but I’m quite confident it will happen.
Nov. 6, 2013, 11:00 a.m. EST
Why China may change forever this weekend
Major reform expected from Communist Party Plenum
By Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — OK, see if you can read the following sentence without falling asleep: On Saturday, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China will begin its four-day meeting.
Sounds wildly boring to be sure, but this meeting — known popularly by the snappy name “Third Plenum” — could be the biggest thing to happen to China in decades.
And given that China is now the world’s second-largest economy, that its fortunes have a major impact on U.S. corporations, and that some economists say China is on the brink of a potential economic crisis with world-shattering implications, it couldn’t hurt to take a look at what the Third Plenum is all about.
A plenum is just a meeting of China’s top Communist Party brass, and they usually hold one or two a year over the five-year term of the Central Committee, basically the party’s leadership. Most of these meetings mean very little if you’re not a member of China’s government, but the Third Plenum … that’s a different story.
Economists and news reports are quick to point out that the Third Plenum of each term — especially following a leadership change — is when all the reforms are rolled out in one gigantic flood of policy changes.
…
As it stands, here’s a sample of some possible measures that may come out of the meeting:
Interest rates and the housing bubble
China is famous for its housing bubble. With interest rates on savings so low, real estate is a very popular investment option for those with funds, sometimes resulting in “ghost housing developments” where the owners sit on uninhabited investment properties as they wait for prices to rise.
The government is of course concerned, having launched a long series of curbs on the property market in recent years, but until the banking sector — dominated by the big state-owned players — offer a viable investment alternative, the housing bubble may remain a growing danger to China’s economic future.
Enter People’s Bank of China Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the central-bank chief shockingly lambasted party leaders late last year over the need to provide depositors with higher interest rates and to open up the financial system to more competition.
…
Nice post Pbear…
It’s 10 pm here and I’m trying to find a good movie on sat in English. When did the USA get so much on the “vampire” thing? Why? Sexy? Scary?
Yea, some of the girls are hot until they show their teeth. It’s boring.
I just saw “The Human Stain”. Drama, Racism, Denial. Much better.
My goodness Rio…10 PM and still awake ?? I would have three hours of bedtime in already… : >)
(10 pm) I would have three hours of bedtime in already… : >)
You must not “have” to get up at 8-9(ish) am.
I didn’t program it-didn’t ask for it, and I don’t want to fight my body-clock but I would for a lot of money. Maybe.